Max - Bey Deckard Page 0,32
about making a good impression at the clinic. What did you call it? Imposter syndrome?” she said, crossing her arms. He could hear tears in her voice, but her eyes were dry. “It wouldn’t have occurred to me in a million years that you would be doing anything else. That you would be off… with some other… Not in a million years….” She let out a shuddering breath, and Crane felt like the earth was going to crack open beneath him and swallow him down to hell. However, at the same time, he couldn’t help but think how fucking naïve she was. Hadn’t she seen the same movies as him? The late working husband is almost always cheating.
“Who is she?” Mary whispered. “Is it your boss? Is it Julie? I saw the way that she looked at you at that cocktail thing we went to…”
Crane laughed and instantly regretted it when he saw that tears finally glimmered in Mary’s eyes. The whole thing felt so surreal. Everything was happening too fast, and he wanted to slow it down, explain, take his time, make Mary understand. She had to understand.
“I’m sorry. No… No, it’s not Julie. Let me explain…” he tried, deciding on the most direct route. “I… uh, I unfortunately let a relationship with a patient get… personal. I let him take control of the situation when I should have stepped aw—”
“Him?” Mary interjected, her voice shrill. “Him?”
“Yes… but—”
“You’re gay now?”
“No! No, not at all. It’s… uh…” Crane floundered.
“It’s what, then? It’s what, Dennis? Are you having sex with a man?” She said it with such horror that Crane was taken aback. Max’s words came to him: Don’t you have any gay friends at all? No bisexuals? You don’t know anyone just a little bit queer? As far as he knew, Mary didn’t either.
“It’s not like that,” he said, trying to keep his voice even.
“Did you put your penis inside a man?” Mary objected, her cheeks tear-streaked. “Or did he do it to you? Were you the one… who… was taking it?”
“What the fuck does that matter?” Crane said, exasperated. Anger was taking over, but anger was better than admitting to himself that he couldn’t answer her question. He’d been sore, that first morning at Max’s condo. Still couldn’t remember half of what had happened. No doubt Max had documented everything though—if he wanted to know, he simply had to ask… He balled his fists on his thighs and took a few quick breaths. “Is that worse than if I’d been fucking Julie?”
“Yes!” Mary yelled, her cheeks flushed and eyes full of tears. “At least that makes some sense! Look at what she looks like! What is wrong with you?” Mary turned her back on him, her shoulders shaking.
“Mary… Listen… I’m not gay. I’m not interested in men. It just happened and you have to understand that—”
“I have to understand what? What Dennis? Oh God”—she bent forward slightly, hands clasped behind her neck, her knuckles white, fingers twisted—“I’m going to be sick. God. Oh God. You weren’t at that convention, were you? That man who called. That’s him, isn’t it? He’s your gay lover? Oh God.”
“Mary, will you stop? Just listen to me, it’s not like that…”
“You fucked him and then you came home and fucked me,” Mary spat, her words ugly and harsh. She spun back to face him, her eyes wild. “How many times? How many times?”
“Maybe if you were actually interested in sex it wouldn’t have been so easy for him to—” Crane stopped, aghast. “No, wait… I’m sorry, Mary… I didn’t mean that.” He put his hands out, trying to placate her. It had gone all sorts of wrong, and he couldn’t take any of it back. Part of him—the part that was already halfway to Max’s condo—sighed in relief because it was finally over.
Mary stared at him for a moment longer, her small frame shaking, and then shook her head. “Get out.”
“Can we talk about this? If I tell you the whole thing, you’d understand.”
“What is there to understand? Go. Get out. You’re not welcome here anymore.”
“Mary, you don’t know what it’s like.”
“Get out.”
“You’re being unreasonable!” Is she, really, Doc?
“If you won’t get out, then I will,” she said in an eerily calm voice. She walked stiffly over to where her work bag was sitting at the bottom of the stairs and lifted it over her shoulder. “I’m going to the café down the street. If you’re still here in an hour when I get